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Jan
24
Klein and Funkhouser push ideas
January 24, 2007 | 13 Comments
This week mayoral candidates Mark Funkhouser and Henry Klein came out a with couple of big policy initiatives.
Klein has issued a commitment to cut crime. It has the standard things like adding more police officers, but also includes a proposal to lift the residency requirement for the KCPD.
Funkhouser has declared war on metal plates, an issue only slightly behind crime for most Kansas Citians. He pledges to eliminate 90% of all plates in two years, and establish an online, public database of all plates. His proposal follows many of the recommendations he made in a 2004 audit.
Categories: KC Mayor, Politics
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He made his recommendations in a 2004 Audi? Well, there’s his problem. If he were driving a big SUV, he might not feel the metal plates as much . . .
Damn Typos!
Henry Klein is a great candidate. I personally don’t understand the value of residency requirements for police either.
The point of residency requirements is that police need to live in the city they are protecting. I like being able to bump into officers at the grocery store and know that their kids are going to the same school as my kids.
I don’t think police are as connected to the community if they live 30 miles away in some place like Olathe or Grain Valley.
The residency rules aren’t perfect, but there’s some value of having police officers and other city employees being city residents. If nothing else, it says public sector workers think enough of the community that they’re not racing to the suburbs as soon as their workday ends.
It would be interesting to see where Klein proposes those 100 new officers would patrol.
The points about residency are good, but there is another side that is worth considering. The fact is that there are a lot of experienced, qualified officers living outside the city limits who would like to work here but don’t want to move their families. More and more, police officers on our force talk about the inexperience they are seeing and the difficulties they are having with recruiting. Many cops on the beat definitely want the residency requirement to be lifted. Don’t know if that is good or bad, but it is true.
i agree bob
even with residency requirements the police are much less likely to live where it would be most benneficial to have a cop car sitting outside at night.
plus then your loosing out on a whole lot of our your workforce. i guess i don’t see this as being a great tool for social change
does the KCPD offer any sort of bonuses for living in high crime areas? I think they should, $2-3k, maybe a bit more. It would be worth it.
The plates issue is just bad management!
funny comment about the audi. coincidentally, i discovered that funk actually drives a beat-up toyota corolla wagon. would be cool to know what the rest of the candidates drive (or are driven around in).
Most KCPD officers already live far from the urban core, either in the Northland or far South KC. Inside the city limits but in suburban school districts.
Check out the real estate section and you’ll see all kinds of adds for subdivisions that tout things like “KCMO address, Park Hill schools”.
I don’t think we have worry about our police officers living Olathe. Joco has already priced itself beyond most working folks like policemen or teachers.
Having to have this discussion points to a whole host of problems with this city. I agree that having the police cars sitting in driveways in the city helps those neighborhoods…also, it’s nice that even when these guys are off work, them spending time in their neighborhoods is helpful (let’s face it, they’re not going to watch a robery happen when they’re off duty). Our biggest problem is why don’t these people want to live here? Bad schools? They don’t make enough $$ to afford the neighborhoods they want to live in? Unsafe for their kids? Let’s fix THESE PROBLEMS instead of trying to hide those problems….
I definitely would like the idea that even if they open this up to allow people to live outside the city and still be KCMO police, that there would be some incentive provided for them to live in the city and particularly in “high risk” areas…
Since there is more metal-plated streets than paved streets, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just replace the little remaining asphault with metal plates?
Just sayin’
I think schools are the single greatest thing holding Kansas City back.
I don’t have any idea how to fix it and improve them, and it seems I’m not the only one…
It’s not only the PD that has requirements. It’s every job the city hires for and that’s just ridiculous. I’ve seen some interesting positions in the IT department of the city but there’s no way they pay enough for me to sell my house and move inside KC city limits. The residency requirements just limit your pool of applicants unnecessarily.